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Dessert

Biscuit Pudding a LA Prince Albert

A steamed biscuit pudding made with Savoy cake, cream, sugar, vanilla, eggs, and a sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Sugar and vanilla are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 8% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes. Both carry beta-damascenone, which smells apple, rose. The science ↓

Biscuit Pudding a LA Prince Albert

Ingredients

Directions

Make the batter

  1. Pour boiling cream over broken Savoy cake and let steep for 5 minutes.

  2. Add sugar, vanilla extract, and salt; mix well.

  3. In a separate bowl, combine egg yolks and whipped egg whites.

  4. Fold the egg mixture into the cake mixture until combined.

Steam and serve

  1. Pour into a mold and steam for 1 hour.

  2. Serve with sauce.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Sugar + vanillatop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together35,032 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-damascenone (apple, rose).

  2. Cream + sugartop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together43,450 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,3-butanedione (butter, sweet).

  3. Cream + vanillatop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,301 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonanone (fruity, floral).

  4. Sugar + eggtop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together122,807 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Vanilla + eggtop 23% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together27,347 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-octen-3-ol (mushroom, earthy).

Sugar and vanilla barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 35,032 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Savoy cake
Forms the body of the pudding, soaking up the cream to become tender.
Cream
Adds richness and moisture, softening the cake as it steeps.
Egg yolks
Enrich the custard and help set the pudding as it cooks.
Egg whites
Whipped to lighten the mixture, giving the pudding a airy, tender texture.
Sugar
Sweetens the pudding and adds moisture to the soaked cake.

The step that matters

Folding in the whipped egg whites. Whipped whites hold air, so they must be folded gently and only until combined. Overmixing deflates the foam, leaving the steamed pudding dense rather than light.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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